Programmatic analytics pioneer, Pixalate, recently released the industry’s first comprehensive RTB quality rating standard, the Global Seller Trust Index, as a step forward in recognizing RTB quality across a holistic range of data including fraud and viewability. Gourmet Ads was among top performers as number 6 in the list.

“Over the last 12 months we’ve invested heavily in educating publishers around quality – we’ve focused squarely on high viewability, high impact, and streamlining our recruitment process to avoid onboarding “bad players”. We’re proud that these efforts have landed us in the top 10,” founder Benjamin Christie notes.

Through our partnership with Pixalate, publishers are able to access viewability ratings, now standing between 60-80%, a significant jump from the lower double digits Gourmet Ads was pulling before incorporating Pixalate’s data, and advertisers can take advantage of high viewability placements for maximized campaign performance.

“Our 86 viewability ranking is a clear indicator that our focus on publisher education and access to real-time data has paid off,” says Christie. “Our fraud ranking is a testament to our zero tolerance approach to fraud as well – we’ve expelled nearly 25 bad sites over the last 12 months.”

The Global Seller Trust Index is based upon Pixalate’s proprietary technology that analyzes more than 100 billion monthly impressions and delivers ratings based upon inventory quality and ad performance, along with classic reach ranking. Pixalate will release the Global Seller Trust Index report of the top 20 performers from more than 400 active RTB sellers to the public monthly.

“Pixalate is very pleased to announce the Global Seller Trust Index as an important step forward in bringing transparency to RTB,” said Jalal Nasir, founder and chief executive officer, Pixalate. “We are committed to meeting the need for accurate, independent ratings that provide a benchmarking standard based on quality. We congratulate Gourmet Ads for the achievement of a top rating, and encourage all sellers to invest in quality management.”

For American advertisers, the Holiday Season kicks off in just a few days with Thanksgiving on November 27th, but it’s not too late to book your advertising space if you haven’t already.

There is no doubt that year after year, the holiday season is the busiest time for online retailers, so if you’re not advertising, you’re definitely missing out on sales. Apart from booking advertising campaigns, it’s essential to have key messages in your advertising creative, which help influence consumers to shop for your products in store and online. The Gourmet Ads team is ready to help you craft the perfect campaign with our sophisticated contextual targeting options. By tailoring your ads to run alongside holiday-driven content like turkey, dressing, pies, pumpkin, ham, baking and more, we can help you reach the motivated, engaged audience you’re looking for.

Finally, don’t forget about key dates after Thanksgiving and Christmas Day when consumers are looking for bargains. Focusing on days like Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) and Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving) will help you intensify the reach of your holiday campaigns.

More and more digital agencies (and their advertisers) use Nielsen OCR for online campaign measurement both during the campaign itself, and during post-campaign analysis. Nielsen OCR makes extensive use of the world’s largest online demographic database, Facebook.

Unfortunately, a common problem for media buyers has always been the inability to make changes in the midst of a campaign to ensure the campaign hits the right demographic across the media plan. With this industry-wide problem in mind, Gourmet Ads invested in a month-long Nielsen OCR study of every website in our network, analyzing each site to understand it’s demographic breakdown.

The results of our site-by-site Nielsen OCR study were exceptional, and given our strong grocery buying audience the data skewed heavily female (over 73%) and, on average, twice as likely to be on target.

Demographic Audience

Audience Index

Female 18-20

156

Female 21-24

191

Female 25-29

260

Female 30-34

203

Female 35-39

246

Female 40-44

191

Female 45-49

175

Female 50-54

178

Female 55-64

204

The obvious home for our site-by-site Nielsen OCR data was within our Appnexus ad server, and we customized the system for every demographic to be targeted.

As a result, for both Programmatic Buyers (via Deal ID) and Direct Advertisers, we now offer the ability for Media Buyers to only target sites which index highly for their required demographic audience. By selecting one or more of these demographic groups, you can ensure your brands are seen on sites that consistently index highly for these viewers.

NEW YORK, Oct. 14, 2014 – With viewability becoming an increasing priority for advertisers, Gourmet Ads has taken steps to both enhance viewability ratings across its inventory and to educate publishers on how to maximize ad views on their own sites.

“A site with poor viewability is like a billboard on an empty road. Advertisers aren’t interested in placing their ads where no one will see them,” says Benjamin Christie, Gourmet Ads founder and president. “Gourmet Ads’ goal is to provide our publishers with practical and actionable tools to help them make changes to increase their viewability. When publishers make website changes with viewability in mind, it creates more quality inventory for advertisers – a win for the entire digital ecosystem.”

Delivering viewable impressions is the first step in effective brand advertising, and Gourmet Ads leads the way offering a solution to the viewability problems advertisers face. Thanks to a partnership with Pixalate.com, Gourmet Ads first added site and placement level viewability reporting to their Publisher Console in June 2013, and since then, the number of high viewability placements across the network have grown by 300 percent. Gourmet Ads has set a benchmark of 70 percent viewability to meet marketplace demands.

As advertiser demand for high viewability placements increases, Gourmet Ads has revamped its entire viewability reporting console for publishers and has released a 20-page guide for publishers with actionable techniques to increase their viewability. The new reporting suite provides even deeper measurement with a combination of placement-level viewability by device.

“We’re committed to providing our publishers with real tools to help them maximize their ad placements,” Christie says. “Allowing them to monitor their site’s viewability in real time, and see how changes they make impact that rating is a huge step toward making high viewability inventory the norm across our network.”

For advertisers, these sell-side changes mean Gourmet Ads can now credibly provide high viewability targeting for private marketplaces, via Appnexus Deals and Packages.

“Using the same data we provide publishers, we classify all placements into targetable categories for 60 percent, 70 percent and 80 percent viewability every 24 hours,” says Christie. “Depending on the advertiser’s targeting requirements, we can then bundle in audience targeting or contextual targeting to hit the correct audience every time.”

“Campaigns using high viewability targeting have resulted in increased performance, high user engagement and, most importantly, brand lift for the advertiser,” Christie notes. “We’re excited to help advertisers leverage this new viewability data to reveal the true opportunity viewability brings to their bottom line.”

The Gourmet Ads team is headed to Cologne, Germany for the 2014 Digital Marketing Exposition and Conference (DMEXCO). Adam London, Global Head of Programmatic Sales and Austin Scott, Programmatic Sales Manager, will join hundreds of digital marketers September 10-11 to forecast the future of digital business.

With over 450 leading thinkers from all over the world making presentations on six stages in the course of two days — the DMEXCO Conference 2014 is on pace to break all previous records. Follow the conference live on Facebook at www.facebook.com/dmexco, and Twitter at twitter.com/dmexco.

Meet us at DMEXCO

If you’re attending DMEXCO or are based in or near Cologne and would like to organize a meeting with Adam and Austin, please contact us to setup a meeting time.

Programmatic Based Deal Packages

Recently I was invited by Appnexus CEO Bryan O’Kelly to be a speaker at the annual Appnexus European Summit, where I helped launch their brand new Packages feature. The highlight of our presentation, together with Edward Thomas from Accuen London, was to execute the world’s fastest Programmatic deal, which we did in 4 minutes and 38 seconds.

What are Packages and how can they help you?

Appnexus Packages (you’ll need an Appnexus Console Login to Access) make ad buying simple and seamless from a Catalogue for one-click purchasing. Packages speed up the process of programmatic media buying, because they eliminate the inefficiency of back-and-forth negotiating one-off deals, helping you find inventory and select the units you need quickly and in real time.

Packages with Gourmet Ads

Gourmet Ads is one of the first Appnexus Sellers in the world to provide packages to the Console Buyer. Our Programmatic Team has created a number of packages based on audience, placement and context, giving you the flexibility to choose exactly where your ads appear. Audience-Based packages offer a fine-tuned demographic.

Opportunities are selected based on our assessment of each of our partner sites’ audiences (e.g. household cooks, moms, vegetarians) along with third party data that enables us to drill down beyond interest, age, sex etc. to find additional data segments like frequency of grocery trips or social food influencers.

Content-Based packages offer hyper-targeted buys based on a specific food category, recipe, or ingredient. For example, a maker of pasta sauce can be assured their ads will run only alongside pasta recipes.

Sample Packages

Here are just a sample a few audience, placement and contextual packages we currently offer.

Package

Package Category

Package Description

Baking Recipes

Contextual

Our Baking Package is one of largest Contextual Segments across our publisher network, ideal for brands looking to influence the novice and professional baker alike. The audience viewing baking recipes is one of the most active and engaged online.

Moms

Audience

Moms are most often the family cook, primary grocery buyer and household decision maker. Our Moms Audience Package reaches this audience when they are researching and viewing recipes to the cook for the family.

970×250 Billboard
IAB Rising Stars

Placement

Increase Brand Lift with the Billboard 970×250. The Billboard is one of the best performing placements across Gourmet Ads.

Grocery Buyers will soon be trading in Snow Shovels for BBQ Spatulas

Everyone is turning their focus to the warmer days ahead…and the advertising opportunities to get your brand in front of grocery buyers who will soon be trading in snow shovels for BBQ spatulas, so here a 8 ideas for your Summer Campaigns;

1. Cinco de Mayo Campaign

Whilst technically not a summer campaign (it is always hot in Mexico!), Cinco de Mayo celebrations are held on the 5th of May and provides bars, restaurants and food brands a chance to cater to this celebration of Mexican culture. Although a Mexican festival, the vibrancy of Mexican cuisine allows for a wide range of products to be advertised for the occasion, especially limes, avocados and beef. For liquor stores, Mexican beer and tequila will be obvious bestsellers. Be sure to research which of your products will be the most popular and run a campaign specifically targeted at those likely to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. To run a campaign at optimal performance, be sure to start running ads in late April. More about Cinco De Mayo

2. Memorial Day Campaign

Memorial Day Weekend flags the start of summer as well as BBQ and Grilling season In backyards across America, barbeques and grills are fired up for the first time after the winter chill. For those in the BBQ business it makes sense to undertake Memorial Day Weekend Advertising to drive sales of products. Ideally your Memorial Day Weekend Advertising should start early to mid-May generating branding and consumer interest initially, then gearing up for increased activity to the few days prior to the Memorial Day Weekend. More about Memorial Day Campaign Ideas

3. Grills & Grilling Accessories Campaign

It will come as no surprise that both Grills and Grilling Accessories usually sell very well in the summertime. In fact, one of Gourmet Ads grilling based clients only runs advertising from mid-May through to mid-September every year and at no other time. In the past few years we’ve found the key to grilling based advertising is education, as many consumers are not confident when it comes to grilling. The other main key to advertising is kicking off at the beginning of May as it starts to warm up.

4. Summer Recipe Competition Campaigns

Running a recipe competition is one of the smartest ways to get grocery buyers thinking about how they can use your ingredients to create new recipes. For the last 20+ years, millions of grocery buyers have been involved with the “Build a Better Burger” Campaign by Sutter Home Wines, either by developing a burger or trying the winner’s recipes! The benefits of a campaign of this nature are two-fold. Not only does it submerge people into working with your product to come up with cooking ideas, but it also provides you with valuable recipes you can use in your marketing. Use advertising to start the flow of entries paired with a generous prize to encourage participation are two keys to success. Think of the long term value a competition like this could have for your brand.

5. Develop & Advertise Grilling Recipes

Grocery Buyers are always looking for the inspiration for family meals, so think about developing a series of grilling recipes that can be advertised. Well-developed recipes with photographs that make grocery buyers drool, can be the catalyst for a long term relationship with your brand. Both an online and offline strategy, places to promote Grilling Recipes online are; the brand’s website as well as a wide reaching advertising campaign with IAB units as well as Rising Star Units like 300x600s or 970×415 Pushdowns where viewers can interact with the advertising.

6. New Product Launch Campaign

Many brands will take the opportunity of summer to launch their new products, especially if the products can be used on the grill. For brands looking to launch new products, it’s essential to target an audience of engaged grocery buyers to kick start supermarket sales. Apart from a wide ranging display advertising campaign, a great way get the attention of grocery buyers is to offer something of value like a downloadable Summer Recipe Guide or a discount coupon.

7. Co-Branded Campaign

There are some foods that just naturally go together, think of peanut butter and jelly, coffee and cream, or rum and Coke they are all opportunities for Co-Branding. Over the summer period we tend to see increased co-branding campaigns, especially with Meat and Sauces, Salads and Dressings as well as Grills and Accessories. Is there a companion brand of yours, that you could work with to leverage each other’s loyal customer base for the combined gain of sales? You never know where a short term campaign might take you.

Easter Advertising isn’t just about Marketing Chocolate Easter Eggs!

This year Easter is midway though April (dates below) and even if you don’t sell chocolate Easter eggs there are significant opportunities over the holiday period for all types of industries. Once regarded simply for the kids, Easter has become one of the most profitable holiday seasons of the year.

With spring in the air and many consumers possessing tax return money makes it an ideal time for you to kick-start your Easter Advertising campaign.

We’ve put together a few Easter Advertising ideas separated by various sectors.

Food BrandsWith Easter being central to all things food (like Easter Brunch or Dinner!), No Food Brand can afford to miss advertising their products at this time of the year. Ideally running a week before Easter, the campaign will be aimed at drive consumers to their local supermarket or grocery store.

Grocery & Supermarkets
With many people spending time with the family over Easter it’s important to gain market share in the lead up to the Easter Weekend. Ideally your Easter Advertising will feature creative with messaging to drive consumers in store like discounts off key staples items or loss leader activity encourage them to do their Easter “big shop” while in store.

Diet & Weight Loss BrandsWith many indulging in Chocolate Easter Eggs and Candy over the Easter Holiday, it gives Diet Brands, Gyms and Weight Loss companies a great opportunity to advertise and convert leads into new customers. Take advantage of people wanting a health kick. See Diet After Easter.

RetailersGiven that Easter is of course a holiday period, many retailers run Easter Sales and to drive interest in the lead up is important. So running at least 10 days prior to the sale starting is essential, then upping the visibility over the Easter weekend to drive consumers in store. Ideally you’ll be running discounts off big ticket items and winter apparel.

Travel CompaniesWith most people spending time with their families over the Easter weekend, there are two opportunities here for travel companies. Firstly, with many people head home there is a significant benefit for companies such as airlines to go heavy up 3-4 weeks prior to Easter, then slow it down closer to the weekend. The 2nd opportunity is for people not heading home, but rather going away for the weekend. So vacation specials should be advertised 10-14 days from Easter weekend. See Grocery Buyers make Travel Decisions.

Ecommerce Sites
Many of the major ecommerce retailers run Easter weekend specials, from free shipping to coupon discounts so why let them have all the business? In the lead up to Easter why not run a campaign targeted at consumers with creative indicating your Easter specials. So no matter if you sell food, clothing or kitchen gadgets, Easter is a great time to boost sales.

Automotive Companies & DealershipsConsumers in the market for a new auto will dedicate the weekend heading to dealerships and doing test drives. So running a campaign in the 5-7 days prior to Easter, then heavy up over the Easter weekend will no doubt result in leads being generated. Learn about our audience of automotive buying Grocery Buyers.

Earlier this year, I personally led the charge on implementing impression based monitoring technology across Gourmet Ads. The technology now measures every single impression served both across our directly managed network of food sites and when we buy impressions in the Appnexus Exchange. The main goal of this monitoring was to ensure our clientâs advertising was being viewed by real humans and not computerized bots.

The move towards impression monitoring was triggered after we met with some of our best clients ranging from direct customers to advertising agencies and programmatic buyers. During these meetings, we asked what their greatest issue is right now. The feedback we received in these meetings was invaluable. Consistently, our clients Number 1 issue they face across the industry is the minimization of buying fraudulent sites and non-human traffic for their campaigns. So to ensure that Gourmet Ads was compliant, we implemented a solution in early April.

Publishers doing the Wrong Thing are not Welcome @ Gourmet Ads

Since then, weâve taken a Zero Tolerance to sites we directly manage showing suspicious behaviour. We’ve to-date expelled 10 sites now from our directly managed network and will continue to do so when we see suspicious behaviour from a publisher.Â Not surprisingly, after removing these suspicious sites we saw our average click through rate drop across the network. But in reality, these were never ârealâ clicks to begin with.Â We are tracking unusual click patterns, impression bursts and spikes, Ad Tags run over multiple URLs, IP tracking and many other factors that could indicate unusual behaviour.

Publishers that insist on utilizing of non-human traffic and bots are not welcome at Gourmet Ads. What makes me angry is fraudulent sites are effectively stealing revenue from legitimate publishers who work hard every day to create great content. Apart from impression based monitoring, we now have three measures in place to do our best to prevent fraud sites from ever joining Gourmet Ads, however itâs not perfect and Iâm sure one or two will still slip through. Rest assured if something is brought to our attention as it has slipped through the gaps, weâll dig into the data, learn how it was missed and take the necessary action.

A Solution for Direct Managed Sites & Exchange Bought Impressions

On the audience extension side, our operations team continues to build a significant black list of sites that we will never buy inventory on when doing retargeting for clients. Â Feedback we had early on from fraud experts in the advertising space said that food sites (as well as lifestyle and gossip sites) are consistently favoured by fraudsters, thus putting Gourmet Ads right in the sights. Recipe sites in particular are relatively easy to create by buying a domain name, then downloading a database of recipes and photos and putting them in an open source CMS.

Since we embarked on this process we have discovered hundreds of fraudulent food sites and few rather large scale âclustersâ of fraudulent recipe sites. Some simply duplicate content and change the domain name and logo, whilst others are sophisticated groups of sites that interlink between each other. Weâve also discovered one food site that looks like legitimate site on face value, but behind the scenes had pages running over 100 ad tags on a single page. When relevant, we also proactively encourage our ad serving partners to block and/or reject sites where we have solid evidence of fraudulent behaviour. Given our access to impression level data and the ability to cross reference it from other sources, these sort of activity stick out rather quickly.

To date our clients have been extremely happy with the results.Â Not only that, our clients know when they are buying Gourmet Ads they are buying quality and not something fraudulent.

Iâd like to think that Gourmet Ads is proactivelyÂ leading the charge on combating fraud in the ad network space. I hope that other ad networks and major exchanges also put their foot down and take a similar stance on fraudulent behaviour with the view of eradicating it across the industry. As I said recently while presenting at Ad Week in NYC, I believe this is a massive and ongoing issue, somewhat similar in nature to credit fraud in the ecommerce space and we all need to actively do what we can to remove it.

If you’re an advertiser or programmatic buyer and would like to learn more about our solution we have implemented, please contact us and we’d be happy to walk you through it.

Easy to Use – Small Business Advertising Solutions from Gourmet Ads

Around the globe, there are literally millions of small businesses within the food, beer, wine and drink industries. All of them share the common goal of creating or retailing great products, as well the challenge of marketing and advertising their great products to consumers.

When we built our self-service platform we focused on making the system easy to use whilst most importantly making it cost effective to end-users.

The Gourmet Ads Self Service Platform for Small Businesses offers the same solutions we’ve provided to Multi-national Enterprises and Advertising Agencies since 2008.

Here are some of the solutions ideal for Small Business Advertising Campaigns ;